The only ones that persist here with any degree of regularity are the cultivars of E. purpurea. Any of the brightly colored hybrid ones, seed grown or not, peter out rapidly, most after a single season.

There is no such thing as hybrid vigor wih these :-)

Any of the ones that are not at my house! I have tried every single echinacea and they have bit the dust every time. Washed my hands of that one! I give up. Good luck to you

None of the hybrids, especially with paradoxa in the lineage, have any sort of tenacity...and seed varieties, such as Cheyenne Spirit will absolutely revert back to the usual purpurea colouring (and nothing wrong with that). No stability whatsoever with future generations (and have observed the same in (surviving) hybrids.

So that seems to confirm that the older true-from-seed straight purpurea (Magnus, White Swan, Wild species) are the best bet.

My Pow Wow Wildberry have come back for three seasons. Although, I have read, but not confirmed, that the Pow Wow series is actually a straight purpurea.

Yep, I think so, Hairmetal. Thinking about the other part of your post, I have no remaining divisions of hybrids to compare with seed sown plants..but suspect that if an echie can be kept alive through a couple of successive seasons, they are pretty much established, with enough rootmass to return. The difficulty has always been that first winter...

Although I don't really frequent garden centres, I am still seeing a big decrease in echinacea breeding and new intros in the UK market...bur we also do not really have echies as deeply embedded in our horticultural psyche as the US market. The 'New Perennialists and prairie planting in general is slipping slightly lower in the style charts in favour of 'The English haymeadow' school of planting.

I haven’t found it for sale yet, so I can’t speak personally, but I’ve heard very good things aboit ‘Pink Double Delight’. Search the forums for others’ experiences.

I read an article about echinacea hybrids with paradoxa in their lineage. To improve longevity in your garden you have to not let it bloom for the first year. This gives the hybrid time to grow a good set of roots for the winter. Would be curious to know if anyone has done this.

Can species Echinaceas be pruned or trained before flowering to produce shorter blooming stalks?

I planted seeds for a shorter cultivar - "prairie splendor rose compact" to replace some straight species that are already planted, but it would be simpler if I could train the originals to grow a little more compact. The longevity of the compact variety is still a question mark.

@Skip - This page says you can cut them back, but I've never actually tried to myself.

"You can also prune Echinacea in half in early June to delay bloom time or reduce plant height."

Felisar, a similar thing is done with fertile meconopsis - to prevent seed production which robs the plant of energy it needs to overwinter...so this sounds very feasible to me.

For me the Pow Wow Berry and White Swan.

Harvest Moon, Magnus and Cheyenne lasted a few years.

The rest didn't even hold up one season.

Agree that the older Echinacea purpurea cultivars, 'Magnus' and 'White Swan' are real survivors.

Surprisingly, we still have one of the Big Sky Series (intergeneric hybrids), a 'Sundown', planted around ten years ago.

A last July 8 picture wasn't accepted by houzz.

Agree 'Magnus' and 'White Swan' are stalwarts . I planted 'Julia' at least 7 yrs. ago and have been very happy with it. I wish they stayed screaming orange but the mix is nice as they fade. You are lucky SB, I tried a few in that series and failed.

Lovely, GG48.

Not familiar with 'Julia', though have certainly seen the flowers of an older survivor-Echinacea selection degenerate over time. Below (Aug 14, 2015), planted about ten years ago, 'Doubledecker'. The flowers are losing/have lost their upper deck. After several years, I finally came to the conclusion that the plant did not actually also show coneflower rosette mite.

Our 'Magnus' (strongly recurved petals) and 'White Swan' (obviously white petals) have faired much better over time.

It's also real lucky that our surviving Big Sky Series 'Sundown' still shows its beautiful colour gradation along the petals (purple to orange), though not as strongly as when the plant was young.

I'm at year 7 with "Merlot". It's seedling are taller but seem quite healthy too.

I’m in year five with cheyenne spirit.

Magnus and Pow Wow White have lasted multiple seasons for me. I am too cheap/leery of failure to buy the fancier varieties. Plus, some of them are in "hot" colours that don't go with my colour scheme.

Any luck with cantaloupe? Just ordered that one for my mom.